Lenormand: What Difficulties Do YOU experience?

I'm ambivalent about the playing card inserts and don't give them primary consideration, but I like the idea of adding fresh perspective to the literal meaning of the cards since I choose not to read them intuitively in most situations. Sometimes they reinforce a card's basic meaning and sometimes they seem wildly at odds with it. I was fortunate to capture the Hedgewhytchery stuff before the site folded (it might still be on the Wayback Machine site), and like the detail I found in it. I tried to attach the pdf for your use but it's too large.

Le Fanu said:

I think my main difficulty is that combinations can mean anything whatsoever and you only really know what after the event! When I look at different possibilities of combos, really, the cards can mean anything and everything... but - you know - I keep trying ...

Click to expand...

This a thousand times over. My issue seems to come in around the absolute specificity of the cards. I can understand when Fish is finances, or "lots of" but once it becomes about blood vessels or fluids or marine biologists it's far too much for me.

Maybe it's because I started with tarot and tend to read Lenormand with a Tarot accent - it has, on the other hand, made me more confident with using traditional predictive strategies for reading Tarot. ;-) An unseen benefit.

Just remembered the QUEEN OF SPADES also means "Widow" and someone that can be nasty whereas a fork tongued woman is more the QUEEN OF DIAMONDS. Not a black widow though. Bouquet is not someone mourning or wearing black nor someone that is nasty. In the German system it is a "younger energy" plus other meanings and in the French other meanings that are on the lighter and joyful side of life.

I definitely do not pay attention to the "inserts".

DND

DownUnderNZer said:

I have never used the card inserts as I was not taught with them. Also, "playing cards" was what I use to read for years before the Lenormand and later Tarot, so I think I would see the inserts differently based on what I learnt before the Lenormand.

Like the "Queen of Spades" I see as a "vindictive woman" and guess what? The Bouquet is everything but a "vindictive fork tongued woman" whereas "Snake" is more like that.

And that is WHY I do not pay attention to the INSERTS because the playing cards was my first tool and the BOUQUET is nothing like the QUEEN OF SPADES.

As for THREE JACKS - An affair or triangle. So, I feel there has to be a "combination" sometimes too. The Jack of Spades is more like "an immature trouble making male" under the age of 25. Again....nothing like the CHILD except for the "immature" part.

That is my thoughts on the inserts and why I choose not to use them, but never know.


DND

Click to expand...

Fish is not blood vessels more like kidneys and bladder....that is funny. Marine biologist is a possibility if next to FOX as a job card though.

All depends on if it is a question compared to doing a general and if you have a good understanding of the basic meanings I reckon.


DND

Shade said:

This a thousand times over. My issue seems to come in around the absolute specificity of the cards. I can understand when Fish is finances, or "lots of" but once it becomes about blood vessels or fluids or marine biologists it's far too much for me.

Maybe it's because I started with tarot and tend to read Lenormand with a Tarot accent - it has, on the other hand, made me more confident with using traditional predictive strategies for reading Tarot. ;-) An unseen benefit.

Click to expand...

Shade said:

This a thousand times over. My issue seems to come in around the absolute specificity of the cards. I can understand when Fish is finances, or "lots of" but once it becomes about blood vessels or fluids or marine biologists it's far too much for me.

Maybe it's because I started with tarot and tend to read Lenormand with a Tarot accent - it has, on the other hand, made me more confident with using traditional predictive strategies for reading Tarot. ;-) An unseen benefit.

Click to expand...

I'm just the opposite. I recognized right at the start that Lenormand is literal whereas tarot is more associative. So I kind of left my intuition at the door and just started with one or two core meanings for each card. I'm still pretty much at that point after a couple of years, except that some flexibility has to be applied in reading combinations because the "cookie cutter" approach can create some awkward assumptions. Overall, though, I find the literal approach entirely satisfactory, as long as I steer clear of the clutter that modern writers have insisted on appending to it (much of which has psychological "tarot" written all over it).

I do find it hardest to see what two cards mean togeather in a spread, before the event I´m asking about has occurd. I often do spreads about historical persons, and then it is easy to see what is meant. But not when reading for myself.

Barleywine said:

Since I consider the last four cards (33 through 36) to be a "stand-alone" part of the reading, I also read the corners as 1, 8, 25 and 32. To me they seem kind of like "stakes in the ground" that show the broad outlines of the reading, similar to surveyor's stakes that mark property boundaries. But I don't give them quite as much weight as I do the first three cards, and certainly not as much as the cards in the "near/far" complex(es).

The same question comes up with mirroring; I don't recall exactly, but it seems to me you aren't supposed to "mirror" to the last four cards in an 8x8+4 array. On the other hand, I do knight to those cards.

Click to expand...

Yes, I too look at the corners in an 8x8 portion of the 8x8x4. I see them as (and those that are old enough will remember) the little sticky corner triangles used to hold photographs in a photo album. The 8x8 of the GT then seen as one large photograph with the corners as the 'glue that holds it together'.

I'm glad you brought up Knighting Barleywine. As you may remember, I'm relatively new to Lenormand, and so I'd like to know when using Knighting to see a two card relationship one to one another as both ends of the "L", do you then use the other two cards in the L line to form a line of read to get further insight? (resulting in a line of 4), or do you only just focus on the two 'end of the L cards' and get a 2 card pairing read? .. hope I'm making myself clear here ..

celticnoodle said:

I have also seen somewhere online where they recommend you read them as 1 & 8 together and then 25 and 32 together.

Click to expand...

That's funny. I read where you read 1 and 32 together then 8 and 25 together, making a diagonal cross.

This the thing, you can read so much where your head is spinning. Ultimately guess always has to be 'do what your own gut tells ya'.. then, (and haven't got near close to this) over time feedback and thousands of reads will be your ultimate answer.

DownUnderNZer said:

Actually, I do see how "Lily" or "Snake" can be seen as "phallic" like, but never in my pre-teens. As for "Whip" I do see it too only as it can be such an aggressive and violent card it was one card meaning I had a harder time with between the two systems.


DND

Click to expand...

Is it not possible to describe the kind of sex that is had by using one card or the other? I mean, Lillies as more tender heart felt sensitive lovemaking and Whip as baudy, kinky, bdsm and maybe Snake would be spiteful sex.. I guess.. Well is this just mixing systems and just asking for probs? There's so much said on DON'T MIX systems.. I just wonder if others do it anyway and somehow 'get away with it' and have successful reads.

And to that end, please DND enlighten me, when you read and since you know both German and French systems so well, among others I might imagine, do you decide upfront which system you will use? please tell me your process, how you derive at giving which cards what meaning and thereby the effects of your overall read that you offer the sitter?

Much obliged, thank you in advance and THANK YOU for starting this thread. I have soaked up so much outstanding info.

Regards,
OS

Barleywine said:

The Moon, along with its meanings of honor and fame.

Click to expand...

Ah, now see, here we have it. I'm right there with Andy, I have his book and it seems really great in parts and very good in others. And I'm reading right along and thinking THIS must be the system that seems to most resonate and but then I hit the Moon as work card. Doesn't do a dang thing for me. Cycles of work each day etc to me kind of stretches the angle. Moon for as long as civilization began has always been associated with emotions, ebb's n flows of the tides and the subconscious and fear and on and on. But work? I can't get there. So what is one to do? only discard it and grab what fits. And now I'm mixing systems. Seriously, what is one to do..

And truthfully, I wish someone would just come out and say what is what that actually separates one system from another. Like in specifics. Unless it's just too complex for a thread such as this. Is it just a handful of cards? or is it really far far deeper?? Is it something someone should actually write a book on??

As for sure, I love Lenormand and really would like to get on with it and get settled in a manner of speaking so I can actually use it in my practice because I truly believe it could be extremely helpful for others.